pop culture, reviewed

Now, about all this brouhaha on The View.  I watch the first fifteen minutes of The View every day — the rest of the show can be entirely terrible, but I like to watch the beginning, the “hot topics” section.  I started watching for two reasons — I’m home during the day now, and Rosie O’Donnell is on the show.  I love Rosie.  I have always loved Rosie.  I know she is loud and abrasive and can be obnoxious, so I totally get why people wouldn’t enjoy watching her, but I like her a lot.  I think it’s partially because she has a tendency toward loyal pop culture obsessions like I do (Rosie:Barbra::Emilie:You Know Who).  Mostly it’s because I like anybody who’s just sort of out there and totally, completely honest like she is. 

Incidentally, I also have always liked Elisabeth Hasselbeck, too.  She’s cute as a button, friendly, fine.  It’s no surprise that I disagree with almost everything that she says regarding the current administration and the war in Iraq, but I still think she’s probably a nice person — unbelievably short-sighted and foolish, maybe, but nice.

So, it made me (along with everyone else) super uncomfortable watching them get in a knock-down drag-out live on TV on Wednesday but yes, I had to side with Rosie.  She said something like, “It always gets reported in the media that big fat lesbian Rosie picked on poor sweet Christian Elisabeth,” and unfortunately, I think that’s probably true.  Now, Rosie has a couple of crazy conspiracy theories and doesn’t do herself any favors sometimes  — any person could see that her rhetorical “who are the terrorists?” question absolutely invited the ensuing spin — but I think Elisabeth could have been a better friend to her in those moments and was unwilling.  I think it’s hard to spend any amount of time actually watching Rosie and listening to what she says and not realize that she is a good, loving, and brave person.  I felt really bad for her.

I kind of knew after watching that meltdown that she would not come back for the remaining three weeks of her contract, but ABC just made the official announcement.  I’m sad for her because I think she’s sad, but I think it was pretty clear over the last year that she was not cut out for that kind of show.  She needs her own show, not a show in a group setting like that.  I hope she’ll back on TV somewhere soon, in a less dramatic and confrontational format.